Frank Herbert’s Dune – Gimmick Space Library & Cosmic Cinema 📕 🎥 ⭐️

In this edition of Gimmick Space Library and Cosmic Cinema, I cover a review of both the book and movie of Dune. I found both very enjoyable and very quickly saw why both were well-liked by science fiction fans.

In Dune, there are vast descriptions of faster-than-light space travel being a regular part of human society. The story takes place around 1000 years in the future, after Mankind has expanded their presence into the colonization of other planets in our galaxy.

The story also includes narratives of advanced technology such as suspensors, still suits, and shields. But even so, you still have traditional architecture in the buildings on the various planets that Humans inhabit such as Caladin, Geddi Prime, and Arrakis (or Dune).

As for alien life, the giant sandworms are part of the story. Here, they are vital to space travel, namely the material they produce called spice is used by the Spacing Guild to navigate the stars. The Spacing Guild holds a virtual monopoly on transporting Humans on different worlds to and from various planets for both trade and warfare.

Another theme is the danger of AI (artificial intelligence) becoming so prevalent that they become self-aware and will be at odds against Human existence and sovereignty. Even now, there seems to be a move against technology being too prevalent, namely the internet becoming too dominant in regular life and the concern of using it as a source of control over people if used wrongly.

The future government of Humans was discussed. An interesting take on it in the story is of a return to nobility and monarchy as government. You see signs of a lean toward dictatorship in today’s government and hopefully, it doesn’t really become that way in Earth’s free nations.

Conflict of good and evil was part of the story, namely House Atreides versus House Harkonnen. The villainy of Baron Harkonnen and his nephews Rabban and Feyd might make the story a bit more mature for younger readers. But all stories do well with a good antagonist that needs to be overcome.

Finally, heroism was covered, namely Paul Atreides leading the oppressed people called Fremen against the dictatorship of Harkonnen rule.

The difference between the book and the movie was very slight. I believe the movie did a good job of capturing the main events of the first half of the book in sequential order and kept the dialog consistent between each. The actors all did well in depicting the main characters both in words and action. I believe the book was better in capturing the scale of the story, but the movie still did well in hitting on the main events and happenings in the 2 1/2-hour run time. The Dune movie was meant to be told in a series of 2 movies, and the second film is due late next year (2023), so it will be interesting to see how well it does with audiences and faithfulness to the book.

Overall, I highly recommend both the book and movie of Dune. I found both engaging and did well in capturing the best qualities of a good science epic.

For The Great Galactic Space Gimmick, I’m Gimmick Commander Ben Faltinowski.

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DISCLAIMER:  The images used in this article were taken from various media sources relating to Frank Herbert’s book and film adaptions of Dune.  They were used specifically to discuss and review Dune and were used for no other purpose.  No royalties were sought or received for this article, and it is believed this constitutes fair use.